ISO store-bought eggnog recipe

November 11, 2006 1:53 PM

Does anyone have a copycat recipe for store-bought eggnog?

I adore store-bought eggnog (despite the fact that I am Keeper of the Faith for my family's ancient, secret, home-made eggnog recipe... don't tell). Specifically, I mean the stuff that you can find in the dairy case next to the milk from around November-early January. It's a thick, sweet, creamy, eggy drink. I would like to be able to replicate this recipe, not only for off-season cravings, but to see if I can make a passable version with Splenda. Does anyone have a recipe that's close?

By the way, the stuff makes awesome French toast.

posted by Addlepated to food & drink (12 comments total)

I believe the search keyword you're looking for is copycat for recipies that are supposed to be like the restaurant/name brand. See also previously for general recipe sites.
posted by Rhomboid at 3:14 PM on November 11, 2006

And now I feel silly for seeing that you said "copycat" in your question already.
posted by Rhomboid at 3:15 PM on November 11, 2006

Wait, you already have an eggnog recipe, so I am confused.
How does your own eggnog recipe taste/look different?
posted by lilithim at 3:51 PM on November 11, 2006

My eggnog recipe is much more high-brow, as well as greatly dependent on lots and lots of alcohol as the majority of the body of liquid.. It's fairly fluffy, having beaten egg whites and whipped cream. It's wonderful, but very different from the store-bought kind, which is more of the consistency of very runny pudding and is non-alcoholic.

I've looked at all the copycat recipe sites I can find, but my Google-fu has failed me for all the holiday seasons that I get a burr under my saddle to try to find a homemade substitute. I keep finding other peoples' family recipes for their version of eggnog.

They do sell both powdered egg nog mix that you can add to milk (icky) and canned eggnog (not as good as fresh), but I'm looking for a way to make it myself without depending on Borden or HEB or Promised Land or whomever to supply me with my fix.
posted by Addlepated at 4:23 PM on November 11, 2006

By "high brow" I mean "takes hours to make from scratch and has no milk, only cream and eggs."
posted by Addlepated at 4:26 PM on November 11, 2006

I've made traditional eggnog (Alton Brown's recipe), and from what I can tell, the only difference in ingredients between it and the Turkey Hill carton in the fridge is that the store-bought stuff uses only egg yolk, and not the whites. I think it also has more cream in it to make up for lost liquid from the whites.

I don't know their process (obviously) so I don't know if they're using pastuerized eggs, or if they're cooking the egg nog. If they're cooking it, that could make a difference in texture as well.
posted by CrayDrygu at 4:38 PM on November 11, 2006

Eggnog is just, milk, cream, sugar, eggs and nutmeg. Play with the proportions to suit your taste. I am betting that the store brands are heavy on the sugar and light on the eggs, and probably somewhere inbetween half and half and whole milk in milk fat content. You will probably need to make your own clone recipe. Also, you can just beat the whole egg rather than separating it when trying to match the store brand. They may also be cheating and adding thickeners like guar gum.
posted by caddis at 4:45 PM on November 11, 2006

This recipe has sugar substitute and skim milk. I haven't tried it.

http://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/recs/60/Low_Calorie_Egg_Nog212.shtml
posted by gg at 5:59 PM on November 11, 2006 [1 favorite]

Translating recipes is hard, here goes the family one:

Ingredients:
THE BASE:
a) 1 liter milk
b) 5 egg yolks
c) 3/4 cups sugar
d) 3/4 cups pure cane alcohol (Or 1.5 cups rum)
THE SPECIAL SOMETHING
e) 1 pinch nutmeg (freshly ground if possible)
f) 2 tablespoons NATURAL vanilla extract (Use more and artificial if you want a more store bought flavor)
g) 2 cloves (optional)
h) 1 cinammon stick (optional, do not use powder)
THE TRICK:
i) 1/2 teaspoon sodium bicarbonate

Instructions:
a) In a large pot boil milk, sugar, cinammon, clove, nutmeg and sodium bicarbonate. Boil for 35 minutes, stir non-stop with wooden spoon.
b) Remove from stove, stir in the vanilla extract, and boil for another 5 minutes.
c) Strain the milk into a large container, removing the chunky spices. Return to pot and let cool.
d) With a fork, whip the egg yolks until they form a 'string' that does not break (what is the term in English?).
e) Very slowly incorporate the yolks into the NOW COOL milk, stirring all the time to get a smooth mix.
f) Return the pot to the stove, with very low heat. Stir in a continuous circular motion, always in the same direction, until it gets syrupy thick. DO NOT let it boil.
g) Remove from stove, and continue stirring while you add the alcohol. Keep stirring until it cools.

That is it. It takes some time, and stirring is the most important part, get into a nice rythm that you can keep for an hour or so, and don't change direction. As a kid I was allowed to stir the cooling mix.

You can add yellow dye if you want.

You can change the flavor adding other types of alcohol, pure cane alcohol gives the most 'industrial' taste.

If you add some orange blossom water along with the vanilla, you get a more refined stuff.

I like to believe that the high alcohol content takes care of Salmonella.
posted by Dataphage at 6:13 PM on November 11, 2006

Have you tried googling for egg nog?

No, seriously in my experience I have never tasted a homemade that tasted anywhere near the flavor of the store brand.

I think there are a few differences that might guide you along the way:

1. Most home recipes are designed to be thicker, so you can add liquor to them. Store brands are thinner, generally from milk
2. Store brands, althoguh occasionally added to alcohol, are often drunk straight, and thus usually include rum flavoring. In my opinion, this is the key, signature flavor of store egg nog. It will probably be difficult to get the artifical rum flabor just right, although you may be able to try the fake rum flavoring in the baking goods/spices aisle and see if it's a match
3. Store brands are pasteurized. This is probably bogus, but I believe that the pastuerization process "smoothes" out the flavors, and removes a bit of the egginess while making it more custardy.
4. They often use commercial thickeners to make it smoother. These ingredients (locust gum, modified food starch, or what have you) are rarely available for normal consumers. They're incidental to the taste but central to the texture.

So, I think that the very nature of these store brands would make them difficult to imitate. I think your best bet would be to find a recipe for an egg custard (don't add the usual vanilla or orange zest), cut out the whites, and double the milk, and perhaps adding just the smalles amount of thickener (agar agar or gelatin) to make a very thin custard. Add a bit of artificial rum flavoring to taste. If you're using "granulated" Splenda, you should be able to substitute the sugar, cup for cup.

Do this all at your own risk, as I have no idea if it will work at all. At worst, buy the store brand once a year and allow yourself to enjoy its special rarity.
posted by Deathalicious at 11:50 PM on November 11, 2006

Almost every store brand has high fructose corn syrup as a primary ingredient. It changes the consistency and the flavor, and you aren't going to see it in any normal recipes, including copycat recipes. And as deathalicious pointed out, you can't just go out and buy things like guar gum.

I would take a regular eggnog recipe, subtract any alcohol, add more milk and some artificial flavors. I think I've even seen artificial egg nog flavoring (in the extract size bottle). If it comes out too thin, use more cream, or maybe even buttermilk.
posted by bh at 3:20 AM on November 12, 2006

And as deathalicious pointed out, you can't just go out and buy things like guar gum.

Well, you can... guar gum of course being a little harder to come by than fructose. But if you wanted to imitate HFCS, you'd just dump some grocery store fructose (and, optionally, glucose) in there.
posted by rxrfrx at 7:35 PM on November 13, 2006